The New Face of Bangkok’s Hotel Scene

In a landscape littered with modern skyscrapers, a spate of small boutique hotels are taking on Bangkok’s five-star Goliaths. From a rickety Chinese shophouse to the industrial hulk of a former publishing factory, local entrepreneurs are rejecting the city’s fixation with flashy new builds and soulless design. Instead, they are presenting an alternative way to see their city—one that’s personal amidst the anonymity, protective of history even as voracious development destroys one heritage site after the next. Here, they open their doors to share their vision of Bangkok.

Ba HaoKarnchanit “Bua” Charoenyos knows her decision to open a chic boutique hotel in Bangkok’s Chinatown strikes many of her fellow residents as odd. The historic neighborhood was settled by Chinese merchants in the 18th century. Now it is a dilapidated network of narrow alleyways, food stalls stacked with skewered meats and gelatinous desserts, and mom-and-pop shops, often with a nightgown-clad granny asleep on a chair. Poorly connected to the rest of the city, it has largely escaped the frenetic construction that consumes much of the capital. “Thai people think it’s really far and see it as a commercial area, where everyone is doing business in shophouses and selling something old,” Bua admits.

Yet Bua is part of a growing set of local entrepreneurs who are rejecting the glass buildings along Bangkok’s main drag, Sukhumvit Road, in favor of an area that still feels authentic. At Ba Hao, the two-bedroom guesthouse she launched in April, patrons are encouraged to insert themselves into the vibrant life of the neighborhood. Occupying the upper floors of a shophouse formerly used to sell rice and seeds, the hotel integrates a low-key, design-focused aesthetic into the ramshackle charm of its surroundings. In both suites, a wall of glass frames the street scenes unfolding below.

“You don’t get to see people walking on the street at home but you can watch that all day here,” Bua says. When I ask about a man asleep in a reclining chair on the sidewalk, Bua and her boyfriend and business partner, Note, laugh. “He’s waiting for a delivery that comes in the evening,” Note shrugs. In a city of 15 million, it’s still normal for this soi’s residents to be attuned to the patterns of their neighbors. “He’s just catching up on some sleep.”

Bangkok Publishing Residence“I thought, Me, hotels, service, business, not so much,” says Panida “Oum” Tosnaitada, scrunching up her face at the thought. Dressed in a plaid shirt and loose khakis, dreadlocks piled into a pineapple-shape bun atop her head, the rakish owner of Bangkok Publishing Residence doesn’t resemble your average upscale hotelier. Yet despite this aversion to the hospitality industry, this August saw Oum launch a surprising addition to Bangkok’s luxury hotel scene: an eight-bedroom bed-and-breakfast in her family’s former publishing factory.

Housed in an industrial building on the fringes of Bangkok’s Old City, Bangkok Publishing Residence is a tribute to Oum’s family legacy. First a delivery boy then a newsstand seller, her grandfather ended up with a lucrative publishing house boasting nearly 20 titles to its name. While the business eventually went the way of most publishers, the original factory remained in the family’s possession. When Oum’s grandmother gifted her the building, she decided to open an exclusive hotel-slash-museum that showcased the remaining historic artifacts.

“It’s like coming into my family’s home,” she says, noting that each of the eight bedrooms were designed with a different family member in mind. Across the three floors, relics from the factory’s publishing days are displayed: a still-functional printing press stands in the lobby while squat rolls of fossilized paper are stacked in an upstairs corner, so stiffened that they were used as stools by the factory workers. On the top floor, an airy library stocked with art books and an easel encourages guests to put their phones down and doodle; in the bathrooms, bespoke toiletries are packaged to look like the various contents of a pencil case. “I want to remind people of ink and paper,” Oum explains.

After a seven-year renovation—including 18 months of forced hiatus during Thailand’s military coup in 2014—Bangkok Publishing Residence is finally open for business—sort of. With little interest in advertising and a perpetually locked front door that opens only to guests, Oum prefers to keep it a sanctuary for those fortunate enough to find it. Commercial success is of secondary importance to the memories she is conserving.

“This place is really for my grandfather,” she says. “We came from no money and now we have so much money. But we’re all forgetting where we came from and this is to remind us where we came from, the beginning of everything.”

Baan 2459Tucked down a side alley in central Chinatown, Baan 2459 is a cool glass of lemonade after the neon-lit mayhem of the area’s main food strip. Recently restored to grandeur by couple Hyae-Yeon “Kim” Kim and Suksan “Pok” Aueareechon, the 101-year-old building had been used as a storage space for their wholesale shoe business for years. “My husband was like, ‘This building is too beautiful to be a warehouse,’ ” says Kim as she reflects on their unexpected foray into the hotel world.

Pok approached the renovation with enthusiasm (“I didn’t see him for six months,” Kim jokes) as he faithfully sought to re-create a family home from that era. Thoughtful nods to its heritage can be seen throughout, from the pistachio-green walls in one suite to the elegant chandeliers and dark wood furnishings throughout. Upstairs, portraits of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej hang over the staircase.

In the courtyard, a speciality coffee shop sits within a glass cube built around an exposed brick wall. It’s the sole nod to contemporary culture: In the last few years, a craze for artisanal coffee has swept the capital. A map of the surrounding neighborhood encourages coffee connoisseurs to seek out other nearby cafés, too, while Pok and Kim like to be on hand to offer local tips.

“People around the world want to come to Thailand to actually experience Thailand, not just to go into one of those Michelin-starred restaurants,” Kim says. “You want to go into those coffee shops that have beans from [the northern Thai city of] Chiang Mai, into a bar that serves cocktails made with Thai ingredients. You find that kind of experience here in Chinatown.”